Andy: We might do business on a board, but I want to carve the pieces myself. One side in alabaster, the opposing side in soapstone. What do you think?
Red: I think it’ll take years.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Flawless and Hollow

An old adage goes, "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." In my last post, I wrote of the flawless victory and the pursuit of perfection. I suppose perfection in one game isn't really the same as pushing toward perfection in my overall chess game. Sheryl Crow sings, "It's not having what you want. It's wanting what you've got."

My game is hardly worth posting because it was too flawless. To protect the innocent, I'm just going to refer you to this game and say that I was on the black side of such a game.

I think this would go into the category of me being too spoiled to be happy with things that other people would be thrilled to have. An eight-move book checkmate. Eight moves for both sides. About five minutes total. No thinking. An early night with plenty of rest. Budapest players dream of luring unsuspecting players into the blunder axb4?? and then playing the fun mating move Nd3#. But my victory was tainted with disappointment and suspicion: disappointment that my chess skill was not really tested and suspicion that my opponent really knew the trap and threw the game.

5 comments:

Nice mate! That's why you remember those things.You can get the victory, closer to qualifying and not spending all night playing chess, don't get me wrong, sometimes its fun playing those marathon games but winning off preparation is nice as well.

I had more thoughts on the drive to work this morning. Taking the example ad absurdum, what if a master allowed you to administer fool's mate? Would you take credit and revel in victory or feel somehow robbed of the struggle?

Allowed? I wouldn't say he allowed himself to get mated.He fell into a trap...if you didn't think the trap was wprth knowing then why did you memorize it? Seems like you should enjoy a fun quick mate and get ready for your next opponent.You wont have many games like that,if a master fell for some obscure trap that I had preparation on it would please me, my study time had payed off.Eveyone has to make mistakes to lose, if you keep dwelling on how the mistakes cheapened the win then I don't see how you can enjoy the game = p

All right. I feel castigated. My crazy and negativity touched a nerve and prompted another reader to tell me to "get my head on straight." No more talk of being gifted thrown games or pity games or lucky games. I'll claim credit whenever I can. I think. =P